One OK result (my 2nd ever time under 2 minutes), which only gave me 255th place, and another rather poor one in Camp, which still increased my rating, mean that I have moved up into overall top 750 plus my 50-average rating is over 100 (102)! Will probably take me about 100 puzzles to become 20th Kyu as my 200-average is still long way off 100...

The last result is a bit of a mess. It uses the "Any solution, no matter how slow, beats no solution for any particular puzzle" principle; over the week, I had solutions for eleven puzzles and erika had solutions for nine.

Congratulations to our winners! Next week's fixtures - or, should I say, the last week's fixtures - are as follows:

I'm sneakily rather glad about that being the final set of matches; they feel pleasingly adequately (though not perfectly) representative of the league as a whole over its near-18-month run. For me, detuned - drsteve has been the marquee rivalry, though happily there have been other very strong champions as well.

Errors and exceptions excepted. Byes are available; please give as much notice as possible. Feel free to concede.

I got an OK result in Dominoes on Friday even beating 4 guys from here. And my overall Dominoes rating is now 699 after solving 7, I think I'm starting to get good at it! I'm also ahead of 1 solver from here in the rating table and getting close to top 500! Only my Sudoku ranking is higher: 480th with 781 points.

Nice to see I'm back in the ladder again and as it's the last week I obviously try to get my first fair win as my only win so far came against afcwarren undeservedly...well, at least that's how I feel.

There was a problem with Ü2. Therefore I replaced it with a new puzzle and unfortunately deleted the wrong results which means, Ü1 is now new too. If you allready have solved the Ü1 you should do it again. Sorry.

Last night's puzzle was a worse stinker, though this one is also pretty tough.
It took me nearly 21 minutes to do the last one, and that was actually a pretty good score.
This one was more like 11 minutes for about the same relative score.
(And I won't say any more -- obviously I don't want to talk about any current puzzle beyond what's obvious from a quick check of the high score table)

Congratulations to our winners, particularly to our final champion, drsteve! It's fitting that our first champion from week 3 is also our last champion. Errors and exceptions excepted, as ever.

As discussed, that was the last in the present series. After 18 months, it's probably about time for this game to go back in its box after a good run... not least because the Croco-League starts on Monday. I hope that the leaderboard page can remain active as a legacy of the ladder. If you've been playing, you've probably develped a sense of who your most natural rivals are; you can always compare your progress to theirs, week on week, on the leaderboard page. Many thanks to the thirteen of you who have played over the years - and particular thanks to Berni for putting the technology in place to make it happen and letting us all play in his garden.

In some ways, I'm a little disappointed that the number of players hasn't been higher and matches have been so repetitious, but you can't make people play if they don't want to. I fear that there was a perception that participation on the ladder was a very high commitment, despite the fact that people have frequently won matches while skipping puzzles (for instance, Steve skipped three this week and still won 6-4). I think the ladder might have been likely to be more popular had there been a commitment to solve only one puzzle a day - and, bearing in mind that some of the puzzles can be very long, the shorter puzzle of the two daily - but I can't think of a convincing way to make that happen in practice without needing to make people solve both puzzles in order to make sure that they've solved the shorter one. Besides, some people don't particularly like the mouse-accuracy-test nature of the more sprint-like puzzles.

If anyone else wants to start a ladder competition, possibly learning from the experiences and arguable mistakes made by me in this one, feel free - and I would definitely be interested in playing.

My final week was a bad one as I only managed to win 1 against PuzzleScot. And to do that I had to beat him in the final puzzle of the week, which was Skyscrapers. Even 2 sudokus didn't give me wins as I just didn't find a way to solve first one without 50-50s but I didn't want to give up trying (though I did leave it for some time, played some chess etc. and returned). 2nd sudoku actually seemed to go well until I realized I had a mistake, then I got nervous and tried to find it and correct it but failed, so got a Fehlversuch, then decided to solve again from a scratch but once again made mistakes. First time ever for me to make mistakes in a Croco-Puzzle sudoku, so obviously very disappointed!

Anyway, this ladder was great and it's sad to see it go but as the lyrics of one good song say 'All good things come to an end'.

A big thank you from me to Chris, Alan and Berni for putting together the various jigsaw pieces to make this work over an 18 month period, and to all my opponents while I was on the ladder for some excellent matches and rivalries. It's been worth the effort!

Likewise from me, Chris, many thanks for running the ladder over the past 18 months (I can't believe it has been that long!) - it has been very efficiently and diligently managed and brought a lot of enjoyment to the participants.

Personally speaking, I think the additional competitive element has improved my game, especially as it has made me solve every puzzle - and not give up where previously I might have done. Having said that, I now intend to spend a few weeks picking and choosing puzzles to try to improve my rating - as much a test of will power as anything else!

...and relax...
Thanks Chris! Very enjoyable all in all. It forced me to try puzzles I'd otherwise avoid - not such a bad thing.
It turns out I'm ok at types I'd never thought I would be, and confirmed other types shouldn't be touched with a barge-pole if at all possible!
Many good matches along the way - thanks to all the competitors (without whom there'd be no ladder).

I'm only too glad to add any other British croco players to the table, now that it's uncompetitive. Just mention it here, or drop me an email.

Thanks from me too, Chris. Was nice to regain the crown at the last attempt (and am therefore the champion for eternity) but it's worth pointing out that Tom must have notched up by far the most weeks at the top.

That's unusual! It means that between you solving the puzzle, and midnight, no-one looked at the high score table.
However, given your solve time, it's entirely feasible that this window didn't exist! I've manually added it.

Hi All. I'm interested in how quickly the highscore table is updated on crocopuzzle, as I completed today's first double block in 8:53, and when I checked the high scores it didn't appear. Thinking it hadn't registered, I went back and did it again (this time 4:53). After the 2nd attempt I checked the highscore table, to find myself accredited with 15 mins. I presume this was the time between starting the first time and finishing the second. Has anyone else ever had a similar issue? I guess what I am really asking is: if your name doesn't appear when you first check the high score table (after completion), is the clock still running (i.e. you need to quickly do it again) or is there merely a delay before the table gets updated?

If you have submitted your solution then it can take a couple of seconds for your time to appear in the highscore table as I have noticed. Defo no need to solve again, at least I have never had an issue with time not being shown there!

I don't think the issue is with the high score updating so much as with the applet successfully sending your score back to the server.
If you click off the puzzle immediately after successfully solving, and your internet connection is laggy, you can sometimes miss your score being registered at all.
You don't actually have to rate the puzzle for your score to count or anything, but to be certain you want to wait until you get the white text stating that your score has been registered (while the text is red, it's still submitting). Under normal circumstances it's very quick, but lag-spikes are always a risk to be aware of.

Thanks both. It sounds likely that this is what happened - I was working on my mac tethered through the iphone, so the connection could have been intermittent. A little frustration with the less-than-optimal time certainly led to a quick detour via the highscores to see the affects...